A brief history of
COUNTRYSIDE MODELS; theprofessional model railway
builders

indent

If you want to see the main web site
you have just missed the link! Just click on the text or logo above. The rest of this page
is an attempt to conform to changes in the way search engines find this site. Put simply,
people looking for my services might use four or five additions to the words "model
railways" or "railway modeller" to find me; prefixes such as
"professional" and "scale" or suffixes like "builder",
"maker", "designer" or "manufacturer". Since there are
many ways of combining these words and since leading SEO practitioners suggest such
repetition will be treated as "spam" unless the phrases can also be found in
"the body" of the text, I have repeasted most of these "tags"
below. Since such repeptition tells you nothing and makes for boring reading I
suggest you ignore the rest of this page and click on the logo above which will take you
to the main body of the site, the photo gallery, and info about us etc. etc. Enjoy!indentWe have been in business as professional
railway modellers, professional model railway designers, professional model railway
builders or professional model railway makers, call us what you will, for nearly 35
years. We have accepted commissions for scale model railways and gained experience
in all types of model railways from the toy train set to the public exhibition model
railway and as professional railway modellers we work in a wide variety of scales and
gauges. Proprietor Andy McMillan trained at Pendon and worked for the National Model
Museum as well as winning over the years a variety of awards, trophies and medals for his
model locomotives and artistic skills. These include, in his pre-professional
railway modelling days, a commended and a bronze medal for trains at International Model
Reilway Exhibitions at the Alexandra Palace; the model railway equivalent of an Olympic
medal and another appearance in a final! Mind you, that was 30 odd years ago...indentAs model railway makers, countryside
models are good! (Just see our gallery of completed models if you doubt that!)
COUNTRYSIDE MODELS are looked for under such names as model railway, model railways, model
railway layout, model railway layouts, scenic models, scenic model railways, scenic
railway layouts, scenic model trains, posh train sets, model scenery, finescale model
railways, finescale layouts, loft layouts, model railway builder, model railway builder,
layout builder, professional model railway builder, COUNTRYSIDE MODELS, countryside
models, model railway makers, professional model railway designers, professional model
railway manufacturers, railway diorama, railway dioramas, railway diorama makers,
professional railway builders, professional model railway builders, scale model railway
builders, scale model railway constructors, photographs of model railways, professional,
scale, model, railways, trains, railroad, pike, designers, builders, makers, constructors,
N gauge, n-gauge, HO, H/O, OO, 00 gauge, O, O gauge, EM, EM gauge, scale4, P4, 7scale,
18.83mm gauge, standard gauge, narrow gauge, countrysidemodels, scale model railway
designers, made to order, broad gauge, 7mm, 4mm, 2mm, countrysidemodels.co.uk; This is not
to mention mis-spelt words such as proffessional model railway whatever, modle, reailways,
modeling, modelers and other howlers. Others have a particular gauge in mind but
they might call it N gauge, Ngauge, Ngage, 9mmgauge, 9mm gauge or 9milgage, for
instance. Then there's HO, H/O, 00, OO, OO gauge or 00 gauge, O, 0, 0 gauge or
0gauge, 7scale, 7 scale, 7mm scale, 7mmscale and 7mil scale, not to mention O guage
and O guage. Then there's EM, EM gauge, 18mm, 18mil, 18mm gauge etc, scale4, scale
4, P 4, P4, 18.83mm gauge, narrow gauge, standard gauge or broad gauge. They might also
look for the words made to order, 2mm, 4mm, 7mm, countrysidemodels.co.uk and of course
there must be thousands of other ways that I haven't mentioned of describing a chap who
builds model railways for money!indentWe have been in business accepting commissions for scale model railways
since 1979 and have gained experience in all types of model railways from the toy train
set (but one you can operate "just like the real thing", unlike most
so-called toy train set plans which are generally designed by the companies which sell the
train sets to fit as much of their own products as possible into the smallest space!),
to the permanent public exhibition model railway, a typical example of which we made for
Poole Quay in the 80s and which now has a new lease of life at Compton Acres, just outside
Bournemouth. We work in a wide variety of scales and gauges; from Z gauge through N, 3mm,
S gauge, O fine, S7, G1 and can work in other scales we've never heard of but one way or
another they are all built to order. As it happens, I've never felt it necessary to put so
much stuff on the front page before but it seems the search engines have changed the way
they search for things and my position on some of them has plummeted of late! However,
we'll try this approach in an attempt to help you find us when you want us. Of course, now
you have found us I trust you haven't wasted lots of your time reading all this! If you
have then my apologies but sometimes you just have to go along with the "Big
Boys" and their latest electronic gizmos; after all, they are trying to eliminate
spam-merchants to help you find genuine sites and if this is what it takes, so be it!
If you have got this far you will be delighted to learn that the
normal part of the site begins here...

C

OUNTRYSIDEMODELS
Artists in Miniature Landscape

Welcome to

COUNTRYSIDE MODELS ;
the model railway site where "seeing really is believing"!

indentOwning a good model railway is a genuine
delight for a surprising number of people. For those who do not have one however,
simply looking at other people's model railways can be almost as much fun and, since most
of our new visitors head straight for our Photo Gallery out of sheer curiosity,
we have put it right at the beginning to make it easy for you! indentOn the other hand, if you do want to
know more about us and our services, read on...

indentMost
new visitors also have a lot of questions about "Who, What, Where, When and How"
- not to mention "How much" ! You can find out whatever you want to know
on our Home Pages.
Besides all the usual info about who we are, what we do and what it costs to have
us make a model railway for you, there is a lot of other, (sometimes surprising),
information there for you too. Have fun!

Part of Tupdale; a 00 gauge model railway which we
completed in 2001. See "Gallery - Tupdale" (click photo above) for lots more
photos with "in-depth" captions.

Part of a Public Exhibition layout
called "Steam Days", originally at Poole Aquarium, Poole Quay, Poole,
Dorset. It was built by us in 1981. Techniques have improved since then but it
remained an excellent advert for us until it was moved to Compton Acres where, it seems,
it just faded away into oblivion... Shame!

indentA useful corner of this website is our News Page where we feature news-type stuff which we'd like to share with
you. Just click on the link above to open the page and then return here to continue!

indentWe hope you enjoy your browse around
what we've been doing here at Countryside Models but do give yourself some time; there's a
lot to look at! indent If you look a little further down you will find some info on when this
site was last updated and last - but by no means least - you can click here for a wide variety of links.
(Well, a few you might actually find useful, anyway!)

Work continues on the current model, between stints of also making progress on another
model currently in hand. The main project is one Birmingham-based in N, while work is also
ongoing for 'charity [was a] quickie' in 00 which remains to be completed. More in
2017...